


Then Came the Beat

by PaxDuane



Series: By Writ and Lips [10]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dogma broke a wall, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Priest AU, kind of, made up weapons, medics are terrifying and you should listen to them, people don't treat the clones like humans and i don't like that, sheev palpatine deserves death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25373215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxDuane/pseuds/PaxDuane
Summary: Dogma could do without the 501st gawking at him while he practices, so it's nice that he has a boyfriend in another unit. And plenty of dirt on another of that unit's commanders.
Relationships: Dogma (Star Wars)/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: By Writ and Lips [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805827
Comments: 12
Kudos: 92





	Then Came the Beat

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first time the orar'bevise were ever mentioned in my writing, but I've since (obviously, since they're hinted at/mentioned in Who's Coming With Me) decided they're at the very least staples in this AU. They're thunder staves/lances. In this AU, the crystal is somewhat related to kyber and cuts through the aether in a way that causes a pointed, directed breaking of the sound barrier. Weaponized sound, basically, but in a smaller area. Initially, I was developing them to be just metal rods that telescoped out and, if you turned parts of it correctly, it would electrify the ends. This did not stay. Nor did the ability for anyone to use it! Though that part has made its way into development of a similar thing in other AUs.
> 
> Other priests from other cultures use the same thing with different names. And the cores are made of different things. Mandalorian ones use beskar and cortosis. Shmi made hers out of junk! Basically if a Priest handles certain thinks with intention, it'll do the thing. Otherwise they're a nice blunt force trauma initiator.

Commander Thorn is rather cheerful when he lets Dogma into the Guard’s training room, though he’s still rightfully suspicious. “Why are you using ours instead of the 501st’s?”

Dogma looks at him from the corner of his eye. “The only person I trust to not either take it as a challenge or take it as something to tease me about is Kix, and he’s too busy using the people who avoid the medical bay for target practice with his new dart gun and the knockout darks that came with it.”

Thorn opens his mouth then closes it again. “Your brother terrifies me,” he finally says. Ever since Kix ratted him out to the Guard medic, Sickle, about the damage that Dogma did to his knee, Thorn has been like this.

“Healthy fear of a field medic,” Dogma says, nodding to show his approval. “He told me to see if Sickle needs help with you lot while we’re here.”

Thorn runs, the coward. “Fox is off in an hour,” he calls as he runs, not even looking back to see the blush that builds on Dogma’s cheeks.

Dogma shakes it off and pulls out one of the small bars of beskar and cortosis. If anyone else held it, anyone but another Priest, it would be just a small, solid bar.

He flicks his wrist out, towards the area in front of him, and the bar extends, three feet of metal and a foot and a half of golden and green crystal that sparks with energy.

He moves his grip to the midpoint of the metal and spins it over his knuckles. Another foot and a half of green and golden crystal slides out.

He steps out, glad he wore the bottoms of his blacks with the t-shirt Jesse got him when they stopped over at Corellia.

One foot forward, positioned out, and the arm with the orar’bevi a bit away from his body. The orar’bevi rests lightly in his grip, falling across the top of his wrist.

He moves, flashing forward with footwork almost, but not quite, similar to a Jedi wielding a lightsaber, falling and catching the orar’bevi, crossing it over his shoulders, over his chest, lashing out at invisible targets. There’s a rhythm to it, one he picked up so well from Jango that it’s worked its way into how he walks. It’s in the staveless style, too, but that turns the grace into brutal efficiency. It crowds all of this movement in.

Considering the time between when he left his orar’bevise on Kamino and when Jango finally made him take them back, he’s still pretty good at it. Good enough that Alpha and 32 probably won’t let him spar with them.

Forward, flip, side and swipe, cross, flip, back and spin. Forward, flip, side and swipe, cross, flip, back and spin. Forward, flip, side and swipe, cross, flip, back and spin.

It’s calming, without someone to go up against. When he was younger, it was always one of the Alphas. Then he made 32 feel his kidneys despite being armored up and Jango took over the spars.

He switches routines. Cross step, body spin, roll the orar’bevi across his hips to switch hands, back, fall over the forearm, plant the orar’bevi and kick out. Cross step, body spin, roll and switch, back, fall over, plant and kick.

Once he’s settled, mind and body, with the one he brings out the other orar’bevise and flicks it out, bringing out the orange and gold crystals. It puts him just out of that settled motion until he integrates back into the routine of two.

The door opens and he swipes the green crystal, aiming it directly at the intruder’s neck. The air cracks early, at the wall beside the door. It’s only the feeling of the aether and the memory of where he is that keeps him from battering the other clone.

Fox looks down at the orar’bevi and swallows, following the line of crystal and metal to Dogma’s face. Then, with more apprehension than appreciation, he looks at where Dogma just cracked the wall.

Dogma drops his arm, revolving the fulcrum of the orar’bevi so it falls back against his arm and shoulder where it sits. The other points to the ground and runs up the back of his other arm. “Has it already been an hour?” he asks, distant.

Fox hums. “Got off about half an hour ago.” He’s stripped off his upper armor, leaving just his upper blacks on his torso, his lower armor still on. “Thorn told me you were practicing something. Didn’t tell me what.”

“He doesn’t know, he ran before he could find out,” Dogma says, pulling his chin up to meet Fox’s gaze. “Kix wants to know if Sickle wants help with the Guard while we’re here.”

Fox smiles, just a bit. “I’m sure she’d appreciate the help. I’ll comm her later. Water break?”

Dogma smiles back and spins first the orar’bevi across his shoulder then the one up the back of his arm into neutral positions, parallel to the floor, and retracts the crystals with a pull of his hand towards his body. He puts them back on the modified clasps he’s attached to his belt, modeled after the one Commander Cody uses for General Kenobi’s lightsaber. “I’d love to.”

Fox tentatively puts his hand on the small of Dogma’s back and ushers him through the halls to the little kitchen the Guard overuses. There, he sits Dogma down and gets a glass of water, eyeing him carefully in case he decides to drown himself in it.

“Thank you,” he says, sipping the water dutifully.

Fox sits across from him, armored knees bumping against Dogma’s nearly bare ones. “Just a tenday?” he asks as casually as possible. He knows, of course, how long the 501st will be here, but he still asks.

“Mm,” Dogma affirms through his water. He sets the glass down and reaches out, putting his hands just shy of Fox’s. “How are the rest of the Guard?”

One of Fox’s hands inches forward to press against one of Dogma’s. “Good, surprisingly,” he breathes. Fox doesn’t tend to lie because he can walk around things. And if anyone else asked, Dogma has a feeling they would have been walked around. “We’re sleeping better. Losing less time on duty. Things feel lighter, and a senator’s aide who… Well, she’s in the hospital still. Some kind of allergic reaction.”

Dogma doesn’t smile, knowing the curse ball is doing its job. It shouldn’t need to, so he doesn’t smile.

“Others, too. The Chancellor was treated for two days,” he says, gaze dropping so he’s not looking Dogma in the eye.

Dogma rubs his thumb over Fox’s knuckles. “Can I stay with you, tonight?”

Thorn is off duty tonight, with Stone on night shift, this time. Still, Dogma doesn’t want to do anything. He just wants to lay next to Fox, check every flicker of his soul with Hod by his shoulder. Or, well… If anything, he wants to scrub away every touch the Chancellor has set on Fox.

Fox hums his agreement, the look in his eyes is exhausted. The Guard may be sleeping better as a whole, Fox may be sleeping a little better, but that doesn’t mean the Commander is getting enough rest.

“I’ll let Rex know.”

Another hum, then: “Can I watch you with those staves again?”

It surprises a smile out of Dogma. “I’d like that.”

Later, when they go back to the training room, Dogma does a few sets of his routines with the orar’bevise before he puts them away and urges Fox onto the mats with him. It’s not a spar—instead he makes the movements of his body from when he uses the orar’bevise, more of a dance when he doesn’t have armor or a weapon but isn’t using staveless forms, and walks Fox through some of the basics.

For half an hour, they move together, back and forth across the mats, until a couple of the younger Corries come in to spar and Dogma and Fox give up the mats and the room for another glass of water, some deliciously spicy soup, a quick chat with Sickle, a comm call to Rex, and then stripping out of clothes to spend the rest of the evening curled together in Fox’s bunk.

“Thank you,” Fox whispers, half drifting off even as Thorn comes in from wherever he’s been and chats a bit with Dogma as he readies for bed himself.

“My pleasure,” he murmurs back, wrapping every emotion of loving duty that comes with doing this into the aether around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Dogma and Fox being tender with each other and both being a little broken is *chef's kiss*. I love it. Thorn loves it. We all agree they're cute. 
> 
> So at this point in the timeline, the Guard all know about (and ship lbr) Foxma and I think most of the other GAR CCs know. 
> 
> OCs are Sickle, the Guard medic who is my lovely trans daughter, and 32. Sickle has a side shave and a lot of piercings. She also does the Guard tattoos. She and Kix get on like a house on fire. 32 is Alpha-0025, named 32 after one of the Alphas who died when they were in training (very traumatic for everyone involved. Jango may have killed a Kaminoan after). He is super close to Alpha (our wonderful A-0017) and Dogma. 
> 
> No. You don't want to feel your kidneys. Dogma wasn't even that good yet! FWIW, once you get a good enough handle on the orar'bevise, you tend to do terrible terrible damage. Like. Pulverize bone in certain spots kind of damage. Duristeel can take more than duriplast, duristeel-beskar alloys can take more than duristeel, beskar can take more than alloys. Which is why Jango took over the spars. 
> 
> {  
> 32, lying on the ground in the fetal position: Buir I can feel my _kidneys_.  
> Jango: Huh, that's...not good.  
> Dogma, 15 growths and aghast: BUIR!  
> }
> 
> Anyways. This is the last of the backlog for BWaL. I'm working on a different AU right now that the first "book (novelette)" of should take up about a month of Saturday updates since it's done. We shall see what goes on.


End file.
